This multi-phased learning package progresses from guided engineering to an open mission-design challenge. Each step is scaffolded and includes easy-to-implement teaching tools, lessons and art activities. Learners, working in collaborative teams,...(View More) build an O-Rex spacecraft model. The building process incorporates inventing, designing and engineering- leading to a deeper understanding of NASA mission work. A leader guide, instructions, templates and a YouTube video are included and accessed through the Related & Supplemental Resources.(View Less)

Become a crime scene investigator! Learners model Dawn Mission scientists, engineers, and technologists and how they use instrumentation to detect distant worlds. After a briefing to build context, students explore interactions between different...(View More) frequencies/wavelengths of the electromagnetic spectrum and matter as they investigate the different ways scientists gather and understand remote sensing data, using Dawn instruments as examples. This module is organized around a learning cycle, engaging students through several experiences to activate students' prior knowledge and assess conceptual understanding, informing next steps.(View Less)

This is an activity about boundaries. Participants will imagine they have taken a journey from Earth through the Solar System out into the Milky Way Galaxy. Using images on the front of the My Place in Space lithograph, they will write or draw on...(View More) the back of the lithograph to tell their friends about their journey and the real and imaginary boundaries they crossed on their journey. The activity includes connections to science related to the Interstellar Boundary Explorer, or IBEX, spacecraft. This activity complements other IBEX informal education materials. An instructional video explaining how to facilitate this activity is available: http://bit.ly/14IoHVN.(View Less)

This is a lesson about robotic exploration of the solar system. Learners will review what they know and what they would like to know, and then revisit their (KWL) chart throughout the MarsBots learning module. This is lesson 9 of 16 in the MarsBots...(View More) learning module.(View Less)

Learners will think like engineers as they are presented with problems that the NASA team faced when designing a spacecraft to travel to Saturn. Students work with partners to think of solutions to address those problems, and to use these ideas to...(View More) sketch their spacecraft. This is lesson 6 of 12 in the Mission to Saturn Educators Guide, Reading Writing Rings, for grades 3-4.(View Less)

In this investigation students explore how resolution affects information content on remotely sensed images, relate remote sensor resolution (pixel size) to information content, and gain an understanding of the information content of different kinds...(View More) of remote sensing imagery. Students examine aerial or satellite images of the area around their school,interpret remotely sense images, and verify them using ground trotting techniques. Magnifying glasses (2x, 5x and 10x power), aerial photographs, plant identification manual, and a tape measure are needed supplies. This exercise is part of the Ground Truth Studies Teacher Handbook (GTSTH), and is a follow-up investigation to the Digital Faces activity of the same resource. GTSTH provides more than 20 activities to build student understanding of global change and remote sensing, and includes background chapters for teachers, glossary, and appendices.(View Less)

Students will "digitize" photographs of human faces using various grid sizes and shades of gray. Through this activity, they gain an understanding of image resolution and how much information is needed to answer various questions.This introductory...(View More) activity introduces skills that are used to recognize and interpret remotely sensed images, such as aerial photos and satellite images. To complete the activity, educators reproduce 8"x10" head shots of students (or use magazine images), and need to create transparencies with grid squares of different sizes to overlay the photographs. This activity is part of the Ground Truth Studies Teacher Handbook, which provides more than 20 activities to build student understanding of global change and remote sensing, and includes background chapters for teachers, glossary, and appendices.(View Less)